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Month: September 2013

Some AFL jumpers are good, some are bad and some are downright ugly. Here are the 35 strangest.

5. Port Adelaide – white lightning

Peter Burgoyne and Chad Cornes model one of Port’ Adelaide’s many jumper atrocities.

It was teal all over the back and white on the front with teal and black caligraphy pen triangles to represent lightning. It was brilliant, it was Port Adelaide’s cash jumper in 2009. Take an opportunity to pause and take in the sheer brilliance of the jumper by staring at Dean Brogan below.

Dean Brogan’s mind wandered to the place it always wandered – thoughts of retirement if he had to wear this jumper again.

4. Adelaide – murder of crows

Tom Lynch: Where’s the murder? I’m slaying these Giants. Tom Lynch celebrates after kicking one of his many goals against GWS.

Adelaide have come up with some stunningly strange designs over the last 10 years but this one takes the biscuit. This season’s away jumper is said to be a ‘Murder of Crows’ with the design on the front said to be composed of various crows placed on top of one another. What it looks like to me is three splashes of paint across a white canvas but art is open to interpretation. Interpret away!

3. West Coast – ochre

Andrew Williams models the ochre jumper in all its glory so well.

Ochre….. why? From 2000 to 2002 West Coast ran with this number as thier away jumper – a stylised Eagle with some burnt orange fading to yellow. And that was just the front! Check out the yellow to red on the side and then the strange colour gradient change from red to light blue across the back as per below and red numbers.

The Brisbane Bears joined the expanded VFL in 1987 and along with the West Coast Eagles chose yellow as their main colour. Being Queensland based Brisbane choose the traditional Queensland colour of maroon to match the yellow. Somewhere along the line Brisbane decided to change from maroon to cerise – a colour I have never heard of before but I suppose could be best described as ‘light maroon.’

The are some other unusual things about he Brisbane Brears jumper beside the cerise. One is the logo: a triangle and two capital Bs worked into the shape if a map if Queensland. But the pice de resistance was a koala bears head appearing like a set of Mickey Mouse ears over Toowoomba.

Second was the mini logo on the sleeve of a long sleeve jumper. I think this is the only jumper in VFL/AFL history to have a logo on the long sleeve version.

As below the colour inverted jumper used as an away jumper in 1991 was marginally better.

Matthew Primus:I can’t believe we lost that game. Warren Tredrea: I can’t believe how bad I look on the big screen in this jumper.

Port Adelaide kept going to the well for clash jumper designs and kept coming back with teal and lightning bolts. This jumper featured the most realistic lightning over a back ground of teal (of course) and silver triangles (why not?) It gave the effect of lightning cracking over a brick courtyard.

Peter Borguyne: The jumper in all its glory and some mighty fine hair.

Judge: Port Adelaide Football Club you have charged with crimes against football jumpers. How do you plead: guilty or not guily?

Port Adelaide: We were a new franchise struggling for identity and we had our tradiional balck and white jumper disallowed.

Judge: Hmm, I’m willing to withdraw the charges relating to lightning bolts but you used an all teal training jumper in a match against Collingwood in 2002. Not a jumper that looked like a training jumper but an actual training jumper. That is indefensible, I hereby sentence you to have all future jumpers designed by small children.

Happy days at Port: Brent Guerra and Nick Stevens celebrate together before leaving the club. Kane Cornes is more circumspect.

The highlight

The two semi finals had strangely similar moments and some stunning goals. Jude Bolton produced a spinning grubbered kick for a goal right on the quarter time siren of the Sydney- Carlton final, Justin Westhoff produced a stunning falling away boundary line snap for goal for Port against Geelong. Topping both of these was Sydney’s Lewis Jetta who ran outside the boundary line tapping the ball in play and then screwed the ball back to the goal square for Keiran Jack to soccer home a goal. The cream rose to the top in both games in the premiership quarter – the Cats kicked 5.6 to Port’s one goal in the third quarter whilst the Swans booted 5.2 to Carlton’s no score. Both games also included bumps that came to the attention of the Match Review Panel. Swan Ted Richards escaped with a reprimand for knocking down Carlton’s Levi “Rock the” Casboult as the act was graded ‘negligent’. On the other hand Geelong’s Paul Chapman bumped Port’s Robbie Gray but jumped in the air as he did so and therefore had his actions graded as ‘reckless’ and so misses a week. That makes sense doesn’t it? Not splitting hairs at all. Both bumpees were fine by the way.

Unusually in the Sydney – Carlton game no goals were kicked to one end of the ground in the second half. Also, so far this September only one final, the Richmond v Carlton elimination final, has attracted more than 60,000 fans.

Some AFL jumpers are good, some are bad and some are downright ugly. Here are the 35 strangest.

10. Hawthorn – Kokoda

The five faces of Luke Breust. From left to right: happy, sad, focused, angry and pensive. No hang on it’s five different people with the same expression and the same haircut.

In 2010 Hawthorn held the inaugural Kokoda game to ‘raise awareness of the significance of the Kokoda Track in Australian history and to raise funds for the Kokoda Track Foundation.’ A fine cause and fine sentiments indeed, however adding army camouflage to a hawk in profile made for an interesting jumper for the game. By 2013 Hawthorn had decided to put a Kokoda logo on a traditional Hawthorn jumper to mark the occasion.

Sam Mitchell is excited to be wearing the Kokoda jumper.

9. Port Adelaide – silver

Danyle Pearce’s and Brendon Lade’s memories of the silver jumper are blurry at best

Silver on footy jumpers just doesn’t quite hit the mark for me, something about it just doen’t quite fit. In this away strip Port Adelaide unveiled in 2007, silver’s role in the design is hard to describe . It’s solid silver on the sides narrowing into stripes at the top and thinning out to teal in the middle. Somehow this is not even close to being the the worst Port Adelaide jumper, not by a long shot.

Showdown: Enraged by the silver an unknown Adelaide player flies over to rip off Chad Corne’s jumper.

8. Kangaroos – Orange

Wayne Carey, Peter Bell, Matthew ‘Spider’ Burton and their height differences ham it up for a phone promotion

The Kangaroos had been running with a royal blue version of the above design as an away jumper since 1996. By 2000 they roped in phone company, Orange, to do a one off promotional jumper when they faced off against their clash jumper nemesis Collingwood. All was dandy with the bright orange jumpers except someone decided to put the Kanga’s in black short and black socks against black and white Collingwood, accentuating not alleviating the clash of uniforms. It was like the whole purpose of the exercise had been forgotten. Sigh. The orange kangaroo jumper was never seen again but I can’t help but feel it may have reappeared had the Kanga’s relocated to the Gold Coast in 2008.

Carey! Note the black shorts and socks

7. St Kilda – yellow

Aaron Hamill: All right boys let’s do this for the jumper!

St Kilda suddenly became aware in 2001 that their uniform clashed with Carlton when Pura Milk offer them some coin to change their jumper to yellow to promote Pura Light Start. Strangely the Saints only clashed with Carlton for 3 years when the Pura promotion expired in 2003. The jumper was not so much a sight for sore eyes as a sight to create sore eyes.

Notoriously short sighted Brett Ratten mistakes Peter Everitt’s jumper for the yellow football while Andrew Thompson has eye’s only for the Sherrin.

6. Carlton – yellow

What could be worse for Carlton than having your captain look like he’d returned to play for the Eagles? Doing a cross promotion with the Livestrong Foundation promoted by the World’s Greatest Drugs Cheat, Lance Armstrong, and the World’s Biggest Buffoon, Brendan Fevola. Carlton fans must look back and cringe at 2009. Not only did they sell out their navy blue jumpers for this horrid all yellow kit including yellow shorts and socks but it was all in aid of the charity founded by Lance Armstrong, a cynical and systematic drug cheat. It kind of makes the light blue M&M jumpers look like a worthwhile cause.

Ah clash jumpers. I would have thought that a guiding premise for a clash jumper would be to create a jumper that identified uniquely with your club. Not so apparently as the birds of a feather all flocked together to get pretty much the same clash jumper. On closer inspection they are not even the same jumper manufacturer Hawthorn and West Coast are Puma and Adelaide are Reebok. Ah whatever, they’re all junk.

14. Geelong – the original clash jumper

Leigh Colbert: If I have to wear this jumper as captain I’m walking out on the club

The year was 1998 and from my memory Geelong were the first Victorian club to produce a clash jumper. It featured three narrow white hoops and a shield but the jumper was binned as it was said to look too much like Carlton. Wasn’t that the point though – to produce a dark strip? Anyway all that was forgotten by 2007 when the Cats rolled out the jumper below which is pretty much the 1998 version with the three narrow hoops replaced by four claw marks. Stylised scratch marks and football jumpers hmmm.

Nathan Ablett: That’s it, I’m walking away from football if I have to wear this cat claw jumper again.

13. Brisbane Lions – the piss stain

Clash jumpers seem to be kryptonite to common sense with Brisbane being an ideal case in point. It was like the Lions were trying to tick off all the clash jumper cliches. Animal logo – tick. Stylised scratch marks – tick. Gradient colour fade – double tick. The faded yellow to white at the bottom of the jumper looked like urine hence the name the piss stain jumper. Terrible.

Luke Power and Daniel Bradshaw: Hey, we just peed on our jumpers then posed for this photo. How tough are we?

Around the time North Melbourne changed their name to the Kangaroos (1999 – 2006) they were fiddling around with footy jumpers featuring kangaroos. In the mid 90s they produced an away jumper featuring a solid blue kangaroo, but by 2003 that design went out the window and instead North produced the mish mash blue number on the left. It had silver stripes on the top half and whispy white ribbons outlining the shape of a kangaroo. In 2005 the silver strips were abandoned but the jet stream outlined kangaroo remained and was shifted to wrap around the jumper in what looked like a training jumper. The best however was yet to come North took that jumper and inverted the colours to produce the white away clash jumper used in a game against Geelong in 2005.

*Note: their are two number 12s as I discovered these North Melbourne jumpers when researching for the jumper below.

12. North Melbourne – Argentina

Don’t cry for me Jack Zeibell

in 2009 North decided to abandon their mainly royal blue jumpers and take a very different tack. It was tied in with some bunfight James Brayshaw decided to have about North not changing their jumper when playing home games against Collingwood. It smacked of a storm in a teacup brewed up just to get a bit of media time and publicity for the struggling Roos. The result was this Argentina soccer team type light pale blue and white combination that the Roos ran with from 2009 to 20011 primarily for away games against Collingwood and Geelong. Strangely enough the ‘terrible’ North -Collingwood jumper clash had disappeared by Round 23, 2013 when both clubs wore their traditional striped jumpers. Odd.

11. Adelaide – red time

Ben Hudson: I wouldn’t have nominated for the AFL draft if I knew I’d be wearing this jumper

I’m not sure what this is supposed to be. Are the yellow and blue stripes meant to be 3D or something. Is it abstract art? I have no idea. From 2007 to 2009 this red number was Adelaide’s clash strip and in the same years Adelaide’s away strip was the big crow below. Tough years for footy jumpers in Adeliade.

Brett Burton and Patrick Dangerfield show off their latest Zumba moves

Port Melbourne had comfortably accounted for Williamstown on the two occasions they met during the home and away season but the tables were turned in this semi final. Williamstown completely dominated Port who looked rudderless without inspirational skipper John Baird – he missed the game with a hamstring injury. At the 18 minute mark of the third quarter Port Melbourne had only kicked two goals and were on a mere 15 points with the margin was up around triple figures in the Seagulls favour. Port redefined junk time by kicking 12 goals from this point until the end of the game but still lost by 87 points. Willie Wheeler and skipper Ben Jolley were amongst the best players for Williamstown and whilst Doggies listed Jason Tutt and Patrick Veszpremi shared nine goals.

Coincidentally Williamstown also met Port Melbourne in the Development League semi final (that’s AFL Victoria speak for VFL reserves). Williamstown won that game by 96 points – a bad day all round for Port Melbourne.

The highlight

Three finals won by lower ranked teams.

First it was Fremantle getting under the skin of Geelong, well Ryan Crowley getting under the skin of Steve Johnson from opening bounce until after the final siren and Zac Dawson throwing his weight around before the ball was bounced. Ross Lyon’s Dockers were simply too good and didn’t allow the Cats to score a goal in the final quarter. The team effort was highlighted by the class performance of Michael Barlow who had 21 possessions and kicked three goals.

There were some unusual sights down at Geelong on Saturday: Aaron Sandilands played in a helmet, Stephen Hill manufactured a sliding doors moment at the interchange gate to pounce on a loose ball and set up a goal and in his 250th match Paul Chapman took the coin toss wearing the green substitutes vest. Even stranger still Geelong have never won a final at their home ground fortress, Kardinia Park, or won a final under the leadership of captain Joel Selwood. Selwood’s finals captaincy record stands at two losses to Fremantle and zero wins and he for one will be looking forward to taking on a different opponent this week when Geelong face Port Adelaide in a semi final.

Some AFL jumpers are good, some are bad and some are downright ugly. Here are the 35 strangest.

20. Fremantle – flying anchor

Soon to be Saint Craig Callaghan, ex Crow Tony Modra and ex Swan Troy Cook belt out a raucous rendition of the old ‘Heave Ho’ after a famous Dockers away victory in 2000. Modra gives the song a bit of the old pepper just to be sure.

Freo gave their original ‘green machine’ (No 31 on this list) away jumper the old heave ho and replaced it with this flying anchor number. Was it an improvement? Hard to say. It looked as if the Dockers players were wearing white braces over their footy jumpers and it featured a dreaded colour gradient. Notice how the shaft of the anchor slowly turns from white to purple as it ascends across the jumper. How the hell could Nana knit that! Gradient wool? Bah.

19. Hawthorn – cartoon hawk

Luke Hodge and the boys trying to look tough and mean wearing a cartoon hawk. Good luck!

Hawthorn – the brown and gold, the poos and wees – have had a long and distinguished history of turning up stinkers of jumpers. Who could forget the blue and yellow diamond number they rolled out one preseason or the t-shirt style jumpers they wore another preseason only to bin them at half time of a game because the players were too hot. Despite having a jumper that clashes with no one Hawthorn gladly embraced the clash jumper malarky in the season proper too. Some say the wings spread, talons out hawk, as above, was an attempt to frighten the seagulls from the MCG playing surface but as both a footy jumper and as a seagull frightener I would put this down as a failure.

18. Brisbane Lions – the paddle pop lion

Break out the ice creams it’s the paddle pop lions!

Brisbane. They had a great jumper, a perfect combination of Fitzroy and Brisbane featuring Fitzroy’s regal looking lion in profile with it’s paw on top of a football. It was strong, it was bold and it was Fitzroy. In 2010 Brisbane then decided to change this emblem to a cartoon lion. It was derided by fans as the paddle pop lion or worse still a portrait of Nickelback lead singer, Chad Kroeger.

So enraged were the people of old Fitzroy they launched Supreme Court action against the Lions new lion but were ultimately unsuccessful in having the design overturned. In 2013 those opposed to the paddle pop lion design were still collecting signatures on petitions outside Brisbane games a the Gabba. Not in my memory has an AFL jumper design created so much prolonged angst among fans.

17. Western Bulldogs – dogs in red

Will Minson and Matthew Boyd hang their heads in shame at having to wear this all red combination.

With the benefit of having white as one of the tricolours in their uniform the Bulldogs were able to produce one of the best, if not the best, clash jumpers in the AFL in 2007 by swapping the royal blue with the white. It was clearly a Doggies jumper and being mainly white it contrasted with the opposition when required. Fast forward to 2013 and it was somehow decided that a predominately white jumper wouldn’t work against the dark blue, yellow and single panel of white of the Eagles. Hence the Doggies rocked out in this red number. Points to them for understanding the concept of a clash kit and changing their socks and shorts to match their jumpers. The Doggies hadn’t worn red shorts since they were Footscray and played at the Western Oval on Saturday afternoons only in the 1970s.

16. Carlton – light blue

Scott Camporeale and Peter Dean ham it up in 1997

Round 3, 1997 – a dark day for football. Carlton threw out 100 years of tradition for nothing more than a cash grab to promote a new light blue M&M. So much did the Blues like the light blue number they left it in mothballs for 14 years until they wheeled out the clash kit below in 2011. It still looks like Sturt in the SANFL to me and not the Old Dark Navy Blues.